WARSAW– U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Saturday sealed a defense teamwork deal with Polish authorities that will lead the way for the redeployment of American troops from Germany to Poland.
In Warsaw at the end of a four-nation tour of main and also eastern Europe, Pompeo and Polish Defense Minister Mariusz Błaszczak authorized an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement that lays out the legal framework for the additional troop presence.
“This is going to be a prolonged guarantee: an assurance that in instance of a threat our soldiers are going to stand arm-in-arm,” Poland’s President Andrzej Duda said during the finalizing ceremony. “It will also serve to raise the security of various other countries in our component of Europe,” Duda stated.
The deal supplements an existing NATO Status of Forces Agreement as well as allows for the enhancement as well as innovation of existing capacities and also centers by allowing U.S. pressures to gain access to added Polish armed forces installations. It likewise sets out a formula for sharing the logistical as well as facilities costs of an increased U.S. presence in the nation.
Some 4,500 U.S. troops are currently based in Poland, but about 1,000 more are to be included, under a bilateral choice announced in 2015. Last month, in line with President Donald Trump’s demand to minimize troop numbers in Germany, the Pentagon announced that some 12,000 soldiers would certainly be taken out from Germany with about 5,600 moving to various other nations in Europe, including Poland.
Troops from the U.S. Army 2nd Battalion, 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division wait to participate in online fire exercises throughout the multinational DEFENDER Europe 20 army workouts at the Drawsko Pomorskie training grounds, at Drawsko Pomorskie, Poland, on Aug. 11, 2020. (Maja Hitij/Getty Images)Additionally, numerous U.S. army commands will be vacated Germany, including the U.S. Army V Corps abroad headquarters that will certainly relocate to Poland next year.
Pompeo has actually used his Europe trip to warn the region’s young freedoms about hazards positioned by Russia and China and has received a warm welcome. In Poland, the function was specifically type offered the relationship in between Trump as well as Polish President Duda, who was promised in for a second five-year term previously this month after a fiercely disputed political election.
A lot of Duda’s Law and Justice party’s plans have placed Poland up in arms with the European Union, which is concerned that federal government initiatives to reshape the judiciary and various other activities have worn down the policy of regulation as well as freedom in the EU participant nation.
By Matthew Lee
Epoch Times staff contributed to this record.
